


Deaths of the Self

by SnowMercury



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21761860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowMercury/pseuds/SnowMercury
Summary: How many names can one man go through? Can one man have?(Some differences from canon, mostly pertaining to Julian and Garak. They’ll become obvious later in the story. Updating tags as story progresses)
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

During times of extreme stress and trauma, the mind does what it can to protect itself. Forgotten memories, muddled thoughts, disorganized thoughts- they are each forms of protection, an adaptation that becomes vestigial, even seemingly malignant after the fact. If we assume that a person’s memories are their self, and that two versions of the same biological person with different memories are different people (such as with identical twins), then through trauma, the self can be irreparably changed. The self can go through a form of death. 

Jules Bashir died at age six. He was on an operating table of sorts, about to go through what some would call a metamorphosis of sorts. Gene editing, made possible through the CRISPR Cas9 enzyme, involves the use of a virus to search through one’s body for cells that include the DNA that one wants to remove, and replaces those sections of DNA with an alternative strand. These segments do not come out of nowhere; they must already exist to be inserted. Then, prime gene editing is used to clean up any other nasty little bits; due to the size, it would be unwise to try to use prime gene editing for every single cell. And through these processes, if it is successful in the 24th century, every cell in the body will eventually have this altered sequence. This includes neurons, which are still making connections and pathways at such a young age.

So it is not far to say, from a scientific standpoint, that Jules Bashir, genetically, did also die. At what point does a repaired ship become a new one? How many parts have to be replaced? 

Of course, we are talking about people, and not ships, and the two tend to be very different. 

Self-determination is taken into account much more with people. Barring, of course, societal expectations and their effect.

Jules Bashir died at age six. Julian Bashir took his place, and lived his life until age fifteen, when he learned what had happened to him. For nine years, he played the part of a secret agent unwittingly. For nine years, Jules Bashir was both alive and dead, schroedinger’s cat in the box. When he was fifteen, the box was opened- and although Pandora did not mean to doom the world to disease, famine, pestilence, and plague, she did so. Ignorance is bliss, some would say. Julian Bashir was truly solidified on the day he learned about what happened to Jules as fully separate and distinct.

Julian remembers a brief interest in spies, in double agents and espionage, when he was five.

He remembers cats and dogs, trees and houses. 

He remembers family, good and bad and difficult. 

But specifics? No; all he remembers feels like he’s watching through a T.V. screen, remembering impressions and feelings and some events through a haze, like piecing together a famous painting after a quick layer of white has been painted over it. Like the screen is an old one, one littered with pixels and static and the fuzz of the insulation from the house a street over, burst and drifting like snow in July. 

Childhood amnesia, of course. A lack of knowledge of specific events, accounting for anywhere before or between the ages of two to eight. It perfectly explained it; explained why after six, he was much better at being able to remember things. Oh, he could still capture snippets and fragments, but putting them together always felt like a collage rather than a reconstructed painting. 

Perhaps, Julian ruminated as he looked into his glass, leaning back on the couch in his quarters, he was thinking too much about his early childhood. After all, it would only serve to make him feel worse.  The feeling of not knowing, not remembering-  of something just outside the grasp of his mind. 

Well, his first official full day started tomorrow. He had better get some rest; thank goodness synthehol didn’t have a hangover attached. 


	2. Chapter 2

Elim Garak had, throughout his life, worn many different suits. The prim and pressed, exact costume of a tailor was simply the newest and most recent in a long row. He was not exactly foreign to switching jobs to adjust to whatever was needed most; it was what was expected of him, naturally, given his standing in Cardassian society. 

This also meant, as a civilian with only a meager understanding of a large variety of trades, his safety and well-being was not exactly the highest priority of the soldiers on Terok Nor. The needs of Cardassia were first, naturally- what was one civilian who could be interchanged with any number of others, whom had been in the same situation as him? Developed the same skills? No, the space on the ships had to go to the soldier who would go on to further serve Cardassia more than he could. 

_After all_ , he ruminated,  _I am only a plain and simple tailor._ No shortage of those among the lower classes.  So naturally he understood. It would only take waiting until a ship- headed by someone other than Dukat, whom he had very unfortunately angered by having been the last to tailor his clothes before a very unfortunate wardrobe malfunction at an event of high standing- arrived with space, and he would be heading back home.

Home.  _To great Cardassia, with warm sands and jungles, rivers and lakes and darkened skies, giving comfort in a way not dissimilar to what the Federation called a hug, but not so constricting._ He wasn’t one to care for feeling trapped, and for now he only had the bright lights, glaring into his eyes and illuminating his fashion collection to a degree he hadn’t anticipated. 

In the bright light, there was certainly pieces of his stock that he would have to reevaluate. The Federation design market standards, he understood, had a much brighter and warmer standardized light setting. It left much of his clothes appearing tacky and much too bright; although maybe it would appeal to the station residents, he couldn’t quite predict one way or the other. 

Being left behind wasn’t without its risks, either. Besides the bright lights and the chill that now seemed to permeate his bones (to the point where he was sometimes surprised the breath of the mammals on the station wasn’t visible), there was also that it was being left in control of the Bajoran Militia and Starfleet. The most notable part there being that the Bajoran provisional government now had jurisdiction over the station, and he was the lone Cardassian left after a long and devastating occupation. 

One could never say he wasn’t a realist. Garak knew he had to be prepared.

It was just as well that one of his skills had been a writing hobby; he had gotten very good at research. And with the hustle and bustle on the promenade (conveniently avoiding his own shop, which he had anticipated a slow day at), he had no doubts that someone would be stopping by at some point to cause some sort of trouble. It would do no good to be caught unawares. 

So, he read. The accounts of subterfuge and hiding things out in plain sight, of keeping secrets and preserving oneself, of self defense and exercise- which he had been careful not to neglect. He had no desire to go to a doctor and place undue strain on an already typically crowded clinic when the station was still Terok Nor, and prevention had been his best method of achieving that. It lended well to the publicly available videos on self-defense techniques that he was no stranger to. 

With an empty shop and new projects to replace the now-gaudy pieces, Garak soon felt himself appropriately prepared. However, there was one thing he had forgotten to prepare for; the gossip mill. 

He was, however, a storyteller in his spare time. He would not be facing it without weapons of his own. 

So even unawares as he sat in his shop, lights dimmed, sewing together a pattern with a needle and thread, Garak was at least a little prepared for what he had to face.


End file.
